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| Beach landscape in Winter |
It’s been
spring -like today, but apart from that it feels like it’s been raining for a
month. Nevertheless, there was one day,
a bit grey, when the rain held off for a while and my walking buddy hauled me off to a rather lovely beach for a
couple of hours.
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| The winter visitor's reward - an untrodden beach |
I imagine that Marion
Bay goes crazy over summer. It is a popular spot with surfers, but today its
modest collection of beach houses seems subdued and almost abandoned. There is merit in visiting a beach in winter,
so long as you aren’t looking for a swim.
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| Looking eastwards towards the Forestier Peninsula |
From the
new lookout there are views over long stretches of empty beach, the ragged
coast of the Forestier Peninsula, a bit of Maria Island and a wide expanse of
open sea. Apparently this bay has long
been popular with sailors - a welcome pause after crossing the wild Southern
Ocean.
Abel Tasman
(1642) is reputed to have been the first European to call in, then Marion Du Fresne (hence the name) 130
years later, and finally fellow Frenchman,
Nicholas Baudin on his way up the East Coast in 1902. Until 1905 when the Dennison Canal was built,
sailors still had to brave the exposed southern tip of the Tasman Peninsula to
reach safer waters. Though the new
shortcut helped, ships still had to negotiate the narrow channel at its
entrance whereby some still came to grief. According to the signage the wreck
of the Zephyr is sometimes visible
when storms shift the sand.
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| Shorebirds at Long Spit where ships had to negotiate "The Narrows" a difficult channel, where several ran aground. |
There’s no
sign of the shipwreck as we walk the length of Long Spit, but we do see lots of
seabirds and shorebirds– molly hawks and pied oyster catchers, gulls and the
odd heron. The surrounding marshes are a haven for many more, as well as wallabies and echidnas. The information board at the Lookout mentions that the area was also popular with Aboriginal people and shell middens prove that sailors were not
the only ones to find it a pleasant place to put in for a while. Other visitors
include fur seals, dolphins and whales.
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| Notes on the Aboriginal History, Explorers and Natural History are found at the top of the Lookout |
The sea air
invigorates, the sun briefly warms, but a light shower starts before we finish
our walk. The map at the start of the reserve said we would meet up with a farm
road at this stage, but we don’t find it. Instead, we find ourselves scrambling
back along the beach with rogue waves lapping at our boots. As the
clouds descend and the wind springs up, we see the darker side of what seemed such a pleasant looking beach.
Who would be a sailor?
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| Wind Power - this tree shows how strongly the winds blow here |
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